Shwartz at CEN

Shwartz talk at CEN

Compares approaches of neuroscience & education

· Cog neuroscience tend to look at outlier group – motivated to improve any deficits

· Educators , context is important ie the things they can control such as instructional tasks, classroom environment – they want to improve learning across the whole range

Education approach to application

Nothing as practical as a good theory

Needs theories to guide actions in the field

Education guided by broad, orientating theories eg Vygotsky, Marx

Do not really need to understand too much to help shape thinking about learning.

Education & psychology have a number of standing debates that have defied resolution

· Being told v discovery

· Decomposition v authentic practice

· Motivation v cognition

Possible research approach

Schwartz ‘hard to treat ‘motivation’ and ‘cognition’ separately when it comes to learning in the brain

Therefore lets try an approach to research that takes both into account.

Slide 57: Chen et al, Shohany et al. comparing agent with person. Note important to manipulate belief about agent. Greater arousal transfer & transfer for the person condition

Hippocampus, amygdala, reward/feedback circuitry implicated

Research led to following application

Manipulated belief and then compared science learning based on a website with a teach agent with self learning. Irrespective of prior level of achievement teach agent superior over self learning.

Comment on previous example as a way of doing interdisciplinary research

1. Started with contextual manipulation ( guided people’s beliefs)

2. Targeted a theoretical bottleneck – cognitive and affective accounts of social learning

3. Novel phenomena that both disciplines could use

4. Produces a corridor of explanation

· Not providing a single explanation of effect

· Working at multiple levels of explanation

Will they get linked up ? generative in the meantime

networked learning, theory & method, G.Conole

Grainne’s position paper for hotseat January 2010

Theory & Methodology in Networked Learning

Phrasing

‘changing and contested nature’

‘theory as an antidote to technical determinism’

‘understand, work with and subvert structures – organisational, discipline, career.’

Definitions

Required as a result of evolving trends with different foci of inquiry

Networked learning – a term that is inclusive of everyone and everything involved.

Methodology – describes how different philosophical positions would interpret data. Methodology aligns with different epistemological beliefs and views of the world.

Theory – structure, idea or it can be empirical ie based on measurements and observations of reality.

Diversity of theory

Touchstone

Tool

Principle

Provides a framework for example a way of understanding and predicting something.

Can have explanatory power

May consist of general assumptions, laws

Models – are ‘abstract representations that help us understand something we cannot see or experience directly ( Conole, Oliver et al, 2007) e.g. Kolb’s learning cycle. Models are often represented visually. Garrison, community of learning model.

Framework – ‘structure and/or vocabulary that supports explication’

Research traditions ( not strictly a definition) historical, cultural, political influences all collectively shape traditions. Also influenced by birth discipline and/or experience of practice.

Theoretical perspectives, dominant discourses

1. Cultural historical activity theory – key notion is mediation by artefacts
2. CoP
3. Actor Network Theory ‘ considers both people and technologies as Actants in a connected network and in particular that it is the relationship between these actants that is important.’ ‘Focuses more on the form that a network takes’ and their formation and sustaibility.

Methodological approaches

note there can be different levels of analysis micro, macro & meta

Content Analysis

Henri, 1992 identified 5 dimesnions that can be used to evaluate CMC, namaely participative, social, interactive, cognitive and metacognitive

Garrison – interaction of 3 core components, cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence.

Gunawadena et al, 1997 – types of cognitive activity the participant engaged with, questioning, clarifying, negotiating, synthesising, etc as well as the types of argument they put forward, the resources they used and any evidence of changes in understanding.

De Laat et al – multimethod SNA + content analysis + critical event

SEE JONES article for effect of context doing the collaboration using a computer with all seated around the computer.

Ethnography

Case Studies

Action research

Evaluation – but note the relationship between evaluation & research remains contested. One way to distinguish them is to consider how the findings are used ‘ if they are interpreted by an immediate, local audience and used to support decion making, the study was probably an evaluation; if the findings are interpreted in terms of theories and are presented as a contribution to knowledge , it was probably research’

Questions

How often is the data collected a reflection of the data that is generated?

What is technology enhanced learning?

Examples

Cloud works as a case study;

Theoretical perspective was socio-cultural drawing on artefacts. At this stage ( early 2010) cloudwork research uses the following frameworks, Goffman – face work, Engestrom, expansive learning, Levy – collective intelligence.Resources

TLRP TEL associations Challenges of Interdisplinary conference in 2007 http://www.tlrp.org/tel/tel-seminars/the-challenges-of-interdisciplinary-research/

Cloud scape of interdisciplinarity

http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1954

Special edition of JIME published in 2002 and edited by Martin Oliver

Oliver, M. (2002). Special Issue on Theory for Learning Technologies: Editorial. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2002 (9). ISSN:1365-893X

[www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/9]

Research methods knowledge based

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/

ESRC National Cnetre for Research methods

http://www.ncrm.ac.uk

Beissel-Durrant, G., (2004) A typology for Research Methods within the social sciences. Available at

http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/115/

Conole, G., & Oliver, M., (2002)

Contemporary perspectives in e-learning research: themes, methods, and impact on practice

http://ora.open.ac.uk/12148/

Jones, C., (1999). From the sage on the stage to what exactly? Description and the place of the moderator in cooperative and collaborative learning, ALT-J, 7(2), 27-36

Yin, R., (2009) Case study research: design and methods 4^th ed., London, Sage.

Centre for interdisciplinary research

http://www.crucible.cl.cam.ac.uk